FRIENDSHIP.

Beautiful eyes,— and shall I see no more

The living thought when it would leap from them,

And play in all its sweetness‘ neath their lids?

Here was a man familiar with fair heights

That poets climb. Upon his peace the tears

And troubles of our race deep inroads made,

Yet life was sweet to him; he kept his heart

At home. Who saw his wife might well have thought,—

“God loves this man. He chose a wife for him,—

The true one!” O sweet eyes, that seem to live,

I know so much of you, tell me the rest!

Eyes full of fatherhood and tender care

For small, young children. Is a message here

That you would fain have sent, but had not time?

If such there be, I promise, by long love

And perfect friendship, by all trust that comes

Of understanding, that I will not fail,

No, nor delay to find it.

O, my heart

Will often pain me as for some strange fault,—

Some grave defect in nature,— when I think

How I, delighted,‘ neath those olive-trees,

Moved to the music of the tideless main,

While, with sore weeping, in an island home

They laid that much-loved head beneath the sod,

And I did not know.

I stand on the bridge where last we stood

When young leaves played at their best.

The children called us from yonder wood,

And rock-doves crooned on the nest.

Ah, yet you call,— in your gladness call,—

And I hear your pattering feet;

It does not matter, matter at all,

You fatherless children sweet,—

It does not matter at all to you,

Young hearts that pleasure besets;

The father sleeps, but the world is new,

The child of his love forgets.

I too, it may be, before they drop,

The leaves that flicker to-day,

Ere bountiful gleams make ripe the crop,

Shall pass from my place away:

Ere yon gray cygnet puts on her white,

Or snow lies soft on the wold,

Shall shut these eyes on the lovely light,

And leave the story untold.

Shall I tell it there? Ah, let that be,

For the warm pulse beats so high;

To love to-day, and to breathe and see,—

To-morrow perhaps to die,—

Leave it with God. But this I have known,

That sorrow is over soon;

Some in dark nights, sore weeping alone,

Forget by full of the moon.

But if all loved, as the few can love,

This world would seldom be well;

And who need wish, if he dwells above,

For a deep, a long death knell.

There are four or five, who, passing this place,

While they live will name me yet;

And when I am gone will think on my face,

And feel a kind of regret.